Hello from Monrovia/Liberia

Hello Ladies from Austria

We are so exited to hear about the first message from you. As you will see by reading this e-mail - we (the women who meet here in Monrovia) do not have the Internet. But we know how the Website looks like, because when Brigitte was here in August she introduced us to the site.

As you can see the meetings in Liberia started - and the communication is not always that easy. I have a group in Monrovia and a group in Harper. With the group in Harper I meet in person and we are meeting once a month (on Saturday) and we had our first premeeting on October 13th, 2009. Our first meeting in Harper will be the comming sunday.

So the procedure will be as follow:

# whenever the group in Monrovia meets they will give me a call and tell me what to write on the blog. I also promised them to call Eve (she is my contact person to Monrovia) if there is an answer from Austria. When I met the group from Monrovia - I showed them some pictures about Austria and we were talking a little bit about the project. They showed interest - so I asked them to form a group and report about their regular meetings.

# for the group in Harper - we are starting with 5 women - but this group is not closed and it can be more in November. We are together in Harper and when we meet I can show them the blog - because I have Internet access and as a group we will try to formulate what we are going to write in the blog.

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In this post I am answering your first post from the group in Monrovia. They were meeting on October 5th and I just got a call from them (or I just called them this weekend to inform me about their outcome in their meeting and what I should write on the blog).

This is the first answer from your post in September 2009. There is one group of women meeting in Monrovia (they meet about 3-4 times (that what they told me) - but don't have a fixed schedule). But the next time they will meet on November 4th, 2009).

Group Monrovia (Edena, Wilhemina, Eve,. Princess, Carina)
First meeting: Oct. 3rd, 2009
2nd meeting: Nov. 4th, 2009
3rd meeting: December 2009 (day is not scheduled)

Group Harper (Cora, Christiana, Philomena, Vivian, Lesole meetings with Brigitte)

Premeeting: October 13th, 2009
1st meeting in Harper: October 17th, 2009
after that we will meet once a month (always on Saturday)

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(Group Monrovia)

This is our first meeting (no this is the summary of our first meeting from October 5th, 2009). We are a group of women from Monrovia (Brigitte told us about the Blog) and we want to answer some of the questions from Angelika, Birgit, Elke, Iris and Maria. We met private at Carinas place - we will meet 3 times and everytime we will meet at a different place.

We are not from an organization. We met Brigitte at the Women's Colloquium in March that we had in Monrovia and since that time we sometimes talk on the phone. We are Business Women (we sell food and other goods on the streets). Brigitte will provide you with some pictures where she pictured us doing business at the colloquium. We don't even have Internet access. We have some Internet Cafes here in Monrovia, but we are not able to use the Internet, since we don't even know about a computer. But we just discuss some issues here in our group and we will than talk to Brigitte on the phone and she promised to put it in the Internet - and also she will call us when we get an answer.

We are Edena, Wilhemina, Eve,. Princess, Carina. We are all age 27 - 35 years.

Edena, age 27, married, 2 children (age 12 and 8)
Wilhemina, age 30, married, 3 children (age 8, 4, 5)
Eve age 31, 1 child (age 12)
Princess, age 35, married, 4 children (age 15, 14, 12, 8)
Carina, age 32, married, 3 children (age 15, 12, 8)

We also talked about Austria and found out that actually we do not know anything about it, beside the facts that Brigitte told us (when we meet her at the Women's Colloquium and and in August 28, 2009 in Monrovia). She also showed us some pictures and we are greatful, so we got some insights from Austria. We even saw one picture from the Palava-Internetcafe where you wrote that you were meeting in (Brigitte showed us 2 pictures of that Palava - one inside and one outside). So now we have an idea where you are meeting at. Brigitte will send a picture to you so you can see one example where we are meeting in Monrovia. We - who sit in the group together - know each other, because we sell at the same street and talk during the time we work.

We also have something that is called a Palava-Hut (we asked Brigitte to put it on the Website). Our palava-hut is used, wen we have difficulties or problems or conflicts. Than we sit together and try to find a solution. But sometimes we as women are not included so much in the palava-hut meetings. It is more used by the elders in the community.

One of your questions is - you want to know what our city looks like. Monrovia has about 1 Million Inhabitants. (Liberia has about 3.5 Million people). Monrovia itself is quite a dirty city. It is a city with a lot of cars, a lot of traffick, very loud. People are poor here. Liberia had a 14 year civil war. This war ended in 2003. Liberia has a female president - her name is: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Her office is in Monrovia.

Those are things we discussed at our first meeting. We are looking forward to get a call from Brigitte - whenever there are some news from you.

Best wishes from Monrovia,
Edena, Wilhemina, Eve,. Princess, Carina